10 Reasons to Choose a Career in the Legal Profession

Rewards of a Career in the Law

By Sally Kane, About.com Guide

1. Diverse Legal Career Options

The complexities of our legal system have created hundreds of legal career options that serve a variety of core and non-core legal
functions. From lawyers, judges and mediators to paralegals, secretaries and consultants, the legal professional’s role is
expanding and evolving to keep pace with the ever-changing legal system.

2. Growth and Opportunity

In the last several years, the legal profession has experienced staggering growth. A steady rise in profits and revenues, expanded
headcounts and significant salary increases have provided plenty of job opportunities in a broad range of legal positions.

3. Financial Rewards

The legal profession is one of the most lucrative industries in today’s job market. Double-digit growth in recent years has
produced healthy revenues and rising salaries. Associates in the nation’s largest law firms start at $150,000 to $180,000 and
partners earn average salaries in excess of $1.2 million. Many non-lawyers also reap significant financial rewards in the legal
profession.

4. Client Service

At the heart of the legal professional’s role is client service. Whether you are a lawyer representing a multinational corporate
client, a paralegal assisting abused women obtain restraining orders or a law clerk researching a tax issue for a new business, the
fundamental purpose of the legal professional is the help others resolve their legal problems.

5. Diverse Practice Areas

Increased segmentation and specialization in the legal profession has spawned a growing number of legal specialties and sub-
specialties that cater to almost every legal interest. Legal professionals who seek a career in litigation can specialize in criminal
law, employment law, family law, products liability or dozens of other practice areas. Legal professionals who prefer a career in
corporate law can specialize in tax law, mergers and acquisitions, real estate, finance or another corporate practice area that
satisfies their interests.

6. Intellectual Challenge

Navigating an evolving legal system, advances in technology, vast bodies of case law and the demands of the legal profession
creates a stimulating intellectual environment for the legal professional. Lawyers and non-lawyers alike must grapple with
conceptually challenging issues, reason with logic and clarity, analyze case and statutory law, research complex legal issues and
master oral and written communications.

7. Prosperity

Historically, the legal profession has weathered economic downturns quite well and should do so in the future, in part due to the
growing geographic and practice diversification of many law firms. In fact, some practice areas such as litigation, bankruptcy and
reorganization, residential real estate foreclosures and regulatory compliance will actually benefit from an economic slowdown.
As a result, legal professionals should find plenty of job opportunities in any economic climate.

8. Prestige

In a culture that views high pay, impressive schooling and societal power as hallmarks of success, the legal profession has long
been regarded as a noble and elite profession. This image is further boosted by the portrayal of legal careers in the media as
exciting, glamorous, fast-paced and desired. As a result, the legal profession has held its allure and careers in the law remain is
one of the most sought-after professions in today’s job market.

9. Global Perspective

More firms and corporations are crossing international borders and expanding across the globe through mergers, acquisitions,
consolidation and collaboration with foreign counsel. The globalization of the legal profession provides today’s legal professional
with a world view and the opportunity to serve international clients.

10. Dynamic Environment

The legal profession is continually changing and evolving, bringing new challenges and rewards. Legal professionals must be
problem-solvers and innovators, willing to assume new responsibilities, tackle new challenges, master new technology and
navigate an ever-evolving legal system. This dynamic legal landscape makes each day unique and fosters an enjoyable, fulfilling
work experience.
The primary characteristics which distinguish the legal profession from business are: (a) “a duty of public service of which
emolument is a by-product, and in which one may attain the highest eminence without making much money”, (b) “a relation as
officer of the court to the administration of justice involving thorough sincerity, integrity, and reliability”, (c) “a relation to client
in the highest degree fiduciary”, and (d) “a relation to colleagues at the bar characterized by candor, fairness, and unwillingness
to resort to current business methods of advertising and encroachment on their practice, or dealing directly with their clients”.

            These characteristics make the law a noble profession, and the privilege to practice it is bestowed only upon individuals
who are competent intellectually, academically and morally. Its basic ideal is to render service and to secure justice for those who
seek its aid. If it has to remain a noble and honorable profession and attain its ideal, those enrolled in is ranks should not only
master its tenets and principles but should also, by their lives, accord continuing fidelity to them. And because they are the
vanguards of the law and the legal systems, lawyers must at all times conduct themselves in their professional and private
dealings with honesty and integrity in a manner beyond reproach. (PCGG vs. SB, et al.,)

History of the legal profession

Ancient Greece
The earliest people who could be described as "lawyers" were probably the orators of ancient Athens
(see History of Athens). However, Athenian orators faced serious structural obstacles. First, there was a
rule that individuals were supposed to plead their own cases, which was soon bypassed by the
increasing tendency of individuals to ask a "friend" for assistance. [1] However, around the middle of the
fourth century, the Athenians disposed of the perfunctory request for a friend. [2] Second, a more serious
obstacle, which the Athenian orators never completely overcame, was the rule that no one could take a
fee to plead the cause of another. This law was widely disregarded in practice, but was never abolished,
which meant that orators could never present themselves as legal professionals or experts. [3] They had
to uphold the legal fiction that they were merely an ordinary citizen generously helping out a friend for
free, and thus they could never organize into a real profession—with professional associations and titles
and all the other pomp and circumstance—like their modern counterparts. [4] Therefore, if one narrows
the definition to those men who could practice the legal profession openly and legally, then the first
lawyers would have to be the orators of ancient Rome.[5]

Ancient Rome
A law enacted in 204 BC barred Roman advocates from taking fees, but the law was widely
ignored.[6] The ban on fees was abolished by Emperor Claudius, who legalized advocacy as a
profession and allowed the Roman advocates to become the first lawyers who could practice
openly—but he also imposed a fee ceiling of 10,000 sesterces.[7] This was apparently not much
money; the Satires of Juvenal complain that there was no money in working as an advocate.[8]

Like their Greek contemporaries, early Roman advocates were trained in rhetoric, not law, and
the judges before whom they argued were also not law-trained.[9] But very early on, unlike
Athens, Rome developed a class of specialists who were learned in the law, known as
jurisconsults (iuris consulti).[10] Jurisconsults were wealthy amateurs who dabbled in law as an
intellectual hobby; they did not make their primary living from it.[10] They gave legal opinions
(responsa) on legal issues to all comers (a practice known as publice respondere).[11] Roman
judges and governors would routinely consult with an advisory panel of jurisconsults before
rendering a decision, and advocates and ordinary people also went to jurisconsults for legal
opinions.[10] Thus, the Romans were the first to have a class of people who spent their days
thinking about legal problems, and this is why their law became so "precise, detailed, and
technical."[10]

During the Roman Republic and the early Roman Empire, jurisconsults and advocates were
unregulated, since the former were amateurs and the latter were technically illegal.[12] Any citizen
could call himself an advocate or a legal expert, though whether people believed him would
depend upon his personal reputation. This changed once Claudius legalized the legal profession.
By the start of the Byzantine Empire, the legal profession had become well-established, heavily
regulated, and highly stratified.[13] The centralization and bureaucratization of the profession was
apparently gradual at first, but accelerated during the reign of Emperor Hadrian.[14] At the same
time, the jurisconsults went into decline during the imperial period.[15]

In the words of Fritz Schulz, "by the fourth century things had changed in the eastern Empire:
advocates now were really lawyers."[16] For example, by the fourth century, advocates had to be
enrolled on the bar of a court to argue before it, they could only be attached to one court at a
time, and there were restrictions (which came and went depending upon who was emperor) on
how many advocates could be enrolled at a particular court.[17] By the 380s, advocates were
studying law in addition to rhetoric (thus reducing the need for a separate class of jurisconsults);
in 460, Emperor Leo imposed a requirement that new advocates seeking admission had to
produce testimonials from their teachers; and by the sixth century, a regular course of legal study
lasting about four years was required for admission.[18] Claudius's fee ceiling lasted all the way
into the Byzantine period, though by then it was measured at 100 solidi.[19] Of course, it was
widely evaded, either through demands for maintenance and expenses or a sub rosa barter
transaction.[19] The latter was cause for disbarment.[19]

The notaries (tabelliones) appeared in the late Roman Empire. Like their modern-day
descendants, the civil law notaries, they were responsible for drafting wills, conveyances, and
contracts.[20] They were ubiquitous and most villages had one.[20] In Roman times, notaries were
widely considered to be inferior to advocates and jurisconsults.[20] Roman notaries were not law-
trained; they were barely literate hacks who wrapped the simplest transactions in mountains of
legal jargon, since they were paid by the line.[21]
Middle Ages
After the fall of the western Empire and the onset of the Dark Ages, the legal profession of
Western Europe collapsed. As James Brundage has explained: "[by 1140], no one in Western
Europe could properly be described as a professional lawyer or a professional canonist in
anything like the modern sense of the term 'professional.' "[22] However, from 1150 onward, a
small but increasing number of men became experts in canon law but only in furtherance of other
occupational goals, such as serving the Roman Catholic Church as priests.[23] From 1190 to 1230,
however, there was a crucial shift in which some men began to practice canon law as a lifelong
profession in itself.[24]

The legal profession's return was marked by the renewed efforts of church and state to regulate
it. In 1231 two French councils mandated that lawyers had to swear an oath of admission before
practicing before the bishop's courts in their regions, and a similar oath was promulgated by the
papal legate in London in 1237.[25] During the same decade, Frederick II, the emperor of the
Kingdom of Sicily, imposed a similar oath in his civil courts.[26] By 1250 the nucleus of a new
legal profession had clearly formed.[27] The new trend towards professionalization culminated in
a controversial proposal at the Second Council of Lyon in 1275 that all ecclesiastical courts
should require an oath of admission.[28] Although not adopted by the council, it was highly
influential in many such courts throughout Europe.[28] The civil courts in England also joined the
trend towards professionalization; in 1275 a statute was enacted that prescribed punishment for
professional lawyers guilty of deceit, and in 1280 the mayor's court of the city of London
promulgated regulations concerning admission procedures, including the administering of an
oath.[29]